Cantor to leave House early

Aides clear a path through tourists as U.S. Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) departs the House floor after making a farewell speech after stepping down as House Majority Leader, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington July 31, 2014.

We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

RICHMOND, Va. — Under the shadow of a stunning primary election loss, former Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Friday that he will resign his seat in the House months earlier than expected.

The congressman will step down Aug. 18 and has asked Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to call a special election to enable his successor to take office immediately, Cantor said in a statement, a day after stepping down from his leadership post.

“It has been the highest honor of my professional life to serve the people of Virginia's 7th District in Congress,” Cantor said. “That is why it is with tremendous gratitude and a heavy heart that I have decided to resign from Congress.”

The Republican had said he would serve out his term and try to help GOP candidates win this fall.

McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said that the governor's office was reviewing the request for a special election.

Cantor's office will stay open and his staffers will be able to continue to handle constituent services under supervision of the House clerk.

Cantor, a major fundraiser with close ties to big business and Wall Street, did not say what he plans to do. He said only that he wants to advocate as a private citizen “for the conservative solutions to the problems we face that will secure our nation's greatness and provide a better life for all Americans.”

Cantor said a special election on Nov. 4, the same day as the scheduled regular election, would give the winner seniority rather than waiting until January to take office with the new Congress. He noted that special election on the same day as the scheduled general election would not cost taxpayers extra.

Cantor lost to Dave Brat, an underfunded, Tea Party-backed opponent, in the June Republican primary.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.